Time Changes
by rebellious disaster
Summary: One parter. Tristan reflects on his teenage years and Rory Gilmore. RR


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A/N- this is just a short one part fic-let about future Tristan. It just kind of came to me when I was figuring out what to do with the next chapter of my other story, but I will get back to "The Clearing" ASAP!

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Disclaimer: You all know the deal. I don't own them, although at times I wish I did. I am just a fan who is passing the time. So please don't sue me!

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Time Changes

Time changes everything.

Day becomes night. Seasons come and go as the dry, blistering heat of Summer makes way for the cool, golden breezes and coloured leaves of Autumn. Tides come in and remove footprints from the sand and any indication of events taking place there. 

People grow up and move on armed with nothing but the thoughts and memories of the people that they once were. 

It never would have worked anyway.

We were two completely different people. As much as I liked her, we would have never worked out as a couple. We were like dynamite and flame- put us together and BOOM! Things get blown to smithereens.

Sure there was chemistry. Tons of it, now that I come to think of it. But neither of us would admit this fact to anyone lets alone ourselves. Hell, I'm only just starting to admit to myself that she was more than a mere conquest.

She made me see things that I didn't want to see, made me realise that their was more to life than money and fast cars, that not everybody in the world was as calculating and self-serving as the people I grew up with, and myself for that matter.

She made me see that there was good in the world.

I hated that. It screwed with all that I had ever been taught to believe. From a young age I was jaded. I was taught that money was power and respect. Emotions were the enemy and that the people that you trust will often be the first to betray you. They were the rules I lived by.

Feelings had never gotten in my way before, and by the time I was eight I had been desensitised to the lack of love shown around my house compared to something out of, say, Full House. I didn't let people in and they didn't even try to get to really know me.

At school I was king. Athletic, good grades (I was fourth in my class which was good enough for me), popular and lots of pretty girls lining up to just have me talk to them.

I know I sound cocky but it was they way it was for me. Just ask anyone who knew me back then.

I loved my life. It was the perfection of all I ever knew. I mean, what more could you really ask for? That was a question that I would often ask myself when I strutted down the halls of Chilton everyday, revelling in the looks of adoration from the girls and the looks of envy from guys. It was the life.

Now, after knowing Rory, I will often look back on my behaviour in shame and disgust. I can't believe some of the things I did, and the feelings of people I squashed like they were nothing more than a little ant on the footpath.

When she came to Chilton I saw her as nothing but a new toy for me to play with and then discard once 

I had tired of playing with it. Se soon proved me wrong.

Rory was strong willed and extremely idealistic. She was still an innocent, left unjaded in part because of the picture perfect storybook town she lived in, and further because her mother had shielded her away from the world that she grew up in and hated and the world that I was a big part of.

Rory was one of those people who genuinely wanted to help people without some ulterior motive to better help herself. She was intelligent and smart and didn't give into the pressures of high school hierarchy. She was her own person with her owned interests and she didn't try to be somebody that she wasn't.

She was the polar opposite to anyone that I had ever known. She was perfect.

The more I got to know about her the more I wanted to change, but I couldn't. I was weak, and I tried to distance myself from her and all she represented as much as possible. Unfortunately that lead to the burglary of a safe and my immediate banishment to a military school in North Carolina, which was a hidden blessing.

While there I was forced to re-evaluate my place in the world and realise that I was not the centre of everything. They made me work hard for something instead of just handing it to me on a freshly polished silver platter when I asked for it.

It was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me.

Time changes everything.

People grow up and move on armed with nothing but the thoughts and memories of the people that they once were.

I often wonder if she has maintained some semblance of the girl that I once knew, and find myself hoping that she is the one thing that hasn't changed in this world, that she has remained as innocent, idealistic and beautiful as I remember her. I hope that she has found all her dreams have come true and that she has continued to touch the lives of those around her much in the way that she touched mine. 

I know that I will probably never see her again and that we never would have worked out but sometimes I just want to thank her for helping me realise that there is more to the world than what I originally thought. 

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So guys, you all know the drill Read and Review. And I should have "The Clearing" updated soon!!

Luv Rach xoxo 


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